Making a Case for the Encyclopedic Description

Chances are, if you’re in the position of building styles and templates for your firm, then you’re struggling finding a way to teach Civil 3D quickly, with minimal loss in production

Why not enhance your training, just a bit, by building styles with meaningful descriptions that point a user down the path of obvious need (you’ll NEED to change a grid; you’ll NEED to change a vertical scale).

I alluded to this in an earlier post, but think about it: Every style has a place for a description. You obviously want to add a meaningful description to your styles, but have you seen the amount of white space set aside in a label composer for a description? I’m confident it’s HUGE ’cause you’ll need an encyclopedic description for each style even REMOTELY related to a Profile – just to remember what it controls! Seriously! Have you tried to memorize the differences between Profile Styles, Profile View Styles, Profile Band Styles, Profile Label Styles, Profile View Label Styles, Profile Curve Label Styles, Profile Line Label Styles, and Profile Label Sets?!

Open one of my styles and the following is what you’ll see:

Name:
DFW CL Profile View (Grid)

Description:
“This dialog controls the vertical exaggeration of the profile (Graph tab), the appearance of the stationing along the bottom of the grid (Axis Annotation tab – Horizontal axis), and the display of the elevations along the sides (Axis Annotation tab – Vertical axis). You access this dialog directly from a drawing by selecting a profile view (anywhere on the grid), Right Clicking, and selecting Edit Profile View Style.”

Think about it: instead of teaching each detail of each dialog to every user in the firm, you’ll instead teach them to read the Information tab (it’s always the first tab). By the Name, it’s obvious this is the style I use for the display of the Grid I put a centerline profile in for work in DFW. But by the Description, it’s equally obvious that if the vertical exaggeration of the view needs to change, you’ll find the setting on the Graph tab. You can already picture the bloody thing!

Civil 3D is easy to learn; definitely deep, but easy to learn… it’s teaching Civil 3D that tickles – so let the software help.

Cheers!